


a question of perspective

by Potoo



Series: A Kink Meme Journey [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Happy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 04:08:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potoo/pseuds/Potoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for the following Kink Meme <a href="http://makinghugospin.livejournal.com/13289.html?thread=9246441#t9246441">prompt</a>: </p><p>"Grantaire is ugly. He doesn't really give a shit, because after a while in his skin and with his mindset you stop giving a shit; Enjolras doesn't care about either his own or Grantaire's appearance, because who cares about physical attractiveness when there are better (political) things to worry about? Some people around them are surprised by the mismatch and how little it seems to matter, but it works perfectly for them."</p><p>  <i>Grantaire grins. “I know. As a reward for my splendid work, may I kiss you?”<br/>Enjolras tries to scowl at him, but he doesn't succeed. “What?”<br/>“I want to try it. Maybe I really will turn into a handsome prince.”<br/>Enjolras regards him for a moment. Grantaire's grin is wide enough to show all of his yellow, crooked teeth and the gap in the back of his mouth.<br/>“You'd make a terrible scientist. We've kissed often enough today. There won't be a transformation.”<br/>“I know,” Grantaire replies, “I don't need a transformation, and I don't think there will be one. I just want to kiss you.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	a question of perspective

**Author's Note:**

> This actually is my headcanon. It absolutely needed to be written. 
> 
> Also, there's porn. Yay.

“Hey, don't I know you?” 

Enjolras turns at the sound of an unknown voice. It's late, he's tired, he's been kept waiting, and he doesn't have time for this nonsense now. There's a girl, his age, maybe a bit older, maybe a bit younger, he isn't sure and doesn't _want_ to be sure, and she's looking up at him hopefully. She's leaning against the bus stop's plastic wall while Enjolras is standing rigidly in front of a poster advertising a new movie starring a random black-haired guy wearing sunglasses at night. 

“No.” he answers, not coolly but not exactly inviting either.  
She senses his reluctance, but doesn't seem to give up just yet. “Yeah. You've been in Professor Bernard's class for one semester. I'm Manon, remember?”  
Enjolras shakes his head wordlessly.  
“No, of course not. I don't stand out like you do.”  
He remains silent, staring ahead and tapping his foot on the ground repeatedly  
“Nobody could forget a face like yours. Or your hair. Or-”  
He's heard enough; another vapid person trying to get at his core by paying him worthless compliments. An interruption is necessary. “Do you want to talk about Professor Bernard's mindless assumptions about Russian legislation or do you want to continue giving me compliments that have nothing to do with who I am or what matters in the world? If the latter's the case, will you stop? I'm sorry, but I'm in a bad mood and I'm not interested in a conversation with _anyone_ at the moment.” 

“Sorry, just trying to be friendly,” she pouts and starts to play with her hair. _His loss,_ she thinks. He's extraordinarily beautiful, certainly the most beautiful man she's ever seen. His face is sculpted by the finest artists, his eyes shine brightly, the porcelain skin is unblemished and his hair is spun of a soft gold. He's out of her league, evidently, and Manon would definitely consider herself very pretty.

They wait in silence for another two minutes, until they're joined by a third person. It's a man, older than her, not as tall as Enjolras and rather stocky. She doesn't exactly _stare_ , but she's a perceptive woman, and she lets her gaze sweep over him as he advances with the obvious intention of waiting for the bus along with them. He's slumped and his worn clothing makes him seem shabby, along with the unkempt beard. His face is spotty, the skin scarred; his nose crooked, his cheeks puffy, and beneath red-rimmed, small, muddy brown eyes are dark bags. He's not slim, like Enjolras; instead, his figure makes him look as if he's pregnant, between the fourth and fifth month. His forehead is too small, his eyebrows are growing together, his eyelids are sloping down, just like the corners of his mouth. His head looks as if it's been smashed it. On multiple occasions. He's ugly. There's no other way to say it. He's as ugly as Enjolras is beautiful. 

She averts her eyes, absolutely no staring going on over here, after all. That way, she misses the yellow fingernails and the discolored teeth. What she doesn't miss, though, is how Enjolras' whole body turns towards him when he comes into view, stopping in his personal space. 

She really doesn't want to stare, but that's just the direction her gaze falls. 

The stranger wraps one arm around Enjolras and pulls him close. She frowns, only barely suppressing a startled gasp. Is this sexual harassment? Her hand flies to the phone in her pocket. Should she call the police? But Enjolras smiles, and she relaxes. His smile doesn't last long. 

“You're late,” he complains, “I've been waiting here for twenty minutes.”  
The other man makes a choked noise.  
“Sorry, angel,” he says and Manon's frown intensifies at the pet name, and at the way Enjolras' smile reappears. “Would you believe me I told you I was delayed by a burning kindergarten? I had to run inside and save all those poor children. And the puppies. Oooh, the frightened puppies, what would they have done had I not...” Enjolras shakes his head and the man pauses. “Are you mad?” The stranger's tone sounds doubtful and a bit insecure. 

“I'm not mad, Grantaire.” Enjolras' voice is calm. “But I'm irritated. Generally.” 

Grantaire makes a soft noise, wraps his other arm around Enjolras and places a small kiss on his cheek. Manon can hardly believe her eyes. Really? _Really_ , Enjolras? If he's gay, then she's definitely out of his league, no problem – after all, all the best men are gay – but that man, that Grantaire guy? Staying with the metaphor, he's not only out of Enjolras' league, he's playing a wholly different sport. Enjolras is playing Polo, Grantaire lets stones skip across a lake. She's sure Enjolras could have _any_ man he wants.  
Instead, there's this guy. 

She wonders if she should call the police nevertheless. What if that Grantaire is somehow blackmailing him? Maybe he's kidnapped Enjolras' little sister - if he _has_ a sister - and forces him to go out with him? What if there's darker stuff going on? This can't be Enjolras' _choice_. 

“Will you stop staring now?” Enjolras asks her and she's torn out of her thoughts.  
“I'm not staaa...” she tries to object but knows it's futile. “Sorry?” she tries instead, forcing herself to smile. “I didn't want to stare. Only, you're so handsome, and he...” Oh _shit_. She should just shut up. There's no possible way to be more impolite. 

But Grantaire doesn't seem to mind the implication behind her words. He laughs. “What, little girl-” She blushes faintly at that title, “I'm too ugly to kiss this _oh_ -so-perfectly crafted masterpiece of a man?” He tugs Enjolras closer and Enjolras rolls his eyes in fond annoyance. “Let me explain it to you. He snores. No man in his right mind wants a snorer. Thus, we've come to a pretty agreement: I endure his terrible snoring, and in return, he is content with looking at a hideous, grotesque monster like me every morning. Maybe true love's kiss will turn the warty frog back into a prince! Shall we try, princess?” 

Manon wants to protest. “You're not a monster, I'm sorry if my words-” 

“Grantaire, shut the fuck up.” Enjolras replies nonchalantly. “She's taking you _seriously_.” 

Grantaire begins to roar. It's laughter, Manon realizes, but it's as ungainly as the rest of him. After a while, he calms down enough to speak. “Sorry, girl. I really don't give a fuck what you think about me. Or us.” His tone is not unfriendly.  
“And I do not care about how he looks. Or how I look, for that matter. I care about what he says, and that's annoying enough most of the time.” Enjolras' words don't seem to be taken seriously either, because the remnants of Grantaire's laughter turn into a warm smile. 

The bus arrives, and Manon is glad she doesn't have to continue the conversation. She's confused, she has to admit; how could he not care? If she were with a man as stunning as Enjolras, she would constantly compare herself to him, probably find herself lacking, and she would be aware of what other people would think. How they would judge. 

When she enters the bus just after the two men, she realizes that she's probably not the first to address the couple about the differences in their appearances. Grantaire's hand is in one of Enjolras' back pockets, and people are openly staring at the couple. She picks a seat close to the driver and tries not to think of the two for much longer. 

“Who was that?” Grantaire asks as soon as they're settled in the last row. Enjolras has already taken out a notepad now that they're seated.  
“Why were you late?” Enjolras asks in return.  
“I really was delayed, you know.” Grantaire answers. “My feet were too slow for the distance I had to cross. Basic mathematics; I failed correctly calculating how fast I had to walk. Your turn.”  
“A girl from one of my classes.”  
“She likes you.”  
Enjolras makes an indistinct noise. Grantaire can't help but smile.  
“Don't worry. I'm not jealous. She can't compare to me.”  
“You didn't need to tease her like that. I'd already shot her down quite explicitly.”  
“Well, what was I supposed to say? _Yeah, mademoiselle, you're right. I'm really fucking ugly, I don't fit with Enjolras. Thank you for your input._ ”  
“That wouldn't have been as impolite.”  
“You! Explaining to me how to be polite! Enjolras, what's next, you're going to tell me how best to pour drinks? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Besides, you laughed.”  
“I didn't.” Enjolras looks at him haughtily, but with a certain amused spark in his eyes.  
“Nope. But you would've. If I'd given you more time.” He leans over until their foreheads meet.  
“Grantaire. Let me read.”  
“I'm letting you read!” Grantaire protests.  
“You're in my space. I can't see my notes.”  
Grantaire stretches out until his torso is lying across Enjolras' lap. “Better?”  
“Not at all.” This time, there's definitely a smile on Enjolras' face he can't hide any longer. 

They continue their conversation during the whole ride, and in the end, Enjolras doesn't get to either make or read notes. He can't say he regrets the progression of events, not really. His former bad mood has vanished almost completely when he steps into his dark, cramped flat, various old and current newspapers, books, loose articles and leaflets strewn over every available surface. 

He manages he make Grantaire shut up only when they arrive in the bedroom. Grantaire practically scrambles onto the bed, pulling off his socks impatiently.  
“Is that never going to get old to you?” Enjolras asks with a certain kind of softness in his voice. That softness is mirrored in Grantaire's face when he looks up at him. He shakes his head.  
“Never,” he says, all traces of former playfulness disappeared. Enjolras lets his gaze wander over the body of his lover while he disrobes himself. It's true what he's said to the girl; he doesn't care. It doesn't matter. He remembers discussions of his classmates, when they were teenagers, little children really; about movie stars and singers, praising their looks, remembers how completely alienated he'd always felt then. It's so very unimportant, and he can't comprehend why anyone would willingly waste a single thought on something as inconsequential to the world's fate as appearances. 

Grantaire is naked. His skin is as spotty as his face, body hair thick over the warm skin, the half-hard cock nestled between a huge amount of dark pubes. He looks at Enjolras, only at Enjolras (only _ever_ at Enjolras, he thinks with warmth coloring his cheeks pink) and beckons him closer to the bed with a nod.  
Enjolras follows the suggestion. He pulls his shirt off, his jeans, his underwear and climbs onto the bed, welcomed by warm arms pulling him close. 

They kiss, slowly, languidly. They have time. There is no hurry, none except the insistent length pressing at Enjolras' thigh where it rests upon Grantaire's lap for the moment. The kisses devolve into a sloppy mess, desperation bleeding into the affectionate touches. Grantaire is already breathing heavily, Enjolras not so much, but he can feel himself hardening just from being pressed so closely to the other man. Grantaire's hand fumbles for the nightstand, but Enjolras slaps it away. 

“You've made me wait today,” he murmurs lowly. “Only fair I'll make _you_ wait.” 

Grantaire whines but doesn't protest, not when Enjolras doesn't finish his sentence before he grips his dick with just the right amount of pressure, swiping across the head with his thumb. Grantaire lies back, having given up, his hands gripping Enjolras' thighs. Enjolras stays in his lap and bends over to nip at his chest. He twists one of Grantaire's nipples lightly, earning himself a moan from the man. “Oh, fuck,” he groans in a strangled voice, and Enjolras delights at the fact he's already so far gone, so hard for him. 

“Good,” his murmur changes into something resembling a purr, “already impatient?” 

“You said you weren't-” Grantaire is interrupted by another well-placed kiss, this one to his balls. “Shit, you weren't mad-”  
“I'm not,” Enjolras replies, humming, “I just like making you wait.” The groan that answers that statement is a mix between lust and frustration. Then, all of a sudden, Grantaire grips his arm.  
“You don't,” he growls, his voice just as low as Enjolras', and he can't keep the hair in his neck from rising at that tone. “You don't like waiting for this. You don't like waiting for my cock. You're far too eager for this.” 

Enjolras growls in turn. “Maybe I am,” he replies, and that's all Grantaire needs to turn them, until he is straddling Enjolras' lap while his partner is splayed out on the sheets, just for him.  
“Don't pretend you don't love-- this,” Grantaire mutters and rocks his hips and _oh_ , okay, Enjolras thinks, he's right, he's desperately, terribly, mortifyingly right, he doesn't like waiting and he won't wait now and _oh God_. His hands grab the other's back, pulling him in for another kiss; he bites his lower lip, doesn't let him go. Grantaire responds by moaning filthily right into his mouth, and Enjolras is acutely aware of his own hardness when the other man's hips rock against his once again. 

They fumble like this for a bit, Enjolras' hands pursuing a hold on Grantaire's back and Grantaire's hands alternating between gripping the sheets and Enjolras' hair; their mouths are sloppily kissing one another, their hips rocking against each other, until it gets far too much for Enjolras.  
“Okay, okay, stop,” he moans and Grantaire stills immediately.  
“Everything all ri-” he asks but Enjolras is quicker, pushing him off and leaning over. 

“I like that sight,” Grantaire comments with a lewd smirk; Enjolras is bending his whole upper body to reach the nightstand's drawer, the work of his lithe muscles visible beneath his skin.  
“Shut up,” Enjolras breathes and procures a bottle of lube. “I want you. Right now. You're right, you're right, I'm really impatient and I _need_ you.”

Grantaire is absolutely smitten. Enjolras' eyes blaze with such a fervor he imagines wildfires burning behind his pupils. “Okay,” he manages to get out, biting his lip and attempting to take the bottle from Enjolras. Enjolras doesn't cooperate, though, coats his own fingers, not as generously as Grantaire would've, lifts his hips and pushes two into himself without any kind of warning to Grantaire, who is much more shocked than Enjolras himself, judging from the man's wincing, but otherwise desperate expression. 

“What,” he breathes, “surprised?”  
Grantaire leans back and watches, watches how Enjolras has lifted his ass in the air and fingers himself open, and he finds his mouth parched at the sight; he can't even swallow. And he's wearing that impatient expression, his eyes locked on Grantaire's, and _fuck_ , he knows that if he were younger, if he were a teenager, he would come from that image alone, and - 

“Stop staring,” Enjolras says, tugging at Grantaire's arm, working his fingers in and out and adding a third, and Grantaire is reduced to one shaky whimper, “and get on with it. I told you I need you, so damn much. Please. Please.”

He truly is an angel, Grantaire thinks, a many-headed monster with fire surrounding his whole body and golden hair like a halo spread out around him. “You're fucking amaz-”  
“Stop staring!” Enjolras repeats himself and his free hand tries to grab Grantaire's prick, but that's out of his reach. He's leaking, and there's nothing he wants to do more in this moment than exactly what Enjolras tells him to (asks him to, _begs_ him to, he thinks, and moans) and he hurries to move closer again. Enjolras removes his own fingers from out of his body, shuddering violently and never staying still, not for one moment, because his hands are already around Grantaire's shaft, coating him with lube for the barest minimum amount of time. 

Grantaire will never get used to how _perfect_ Enjolras feels from the inside, he thinks as he slides into him, panting heavily. Neither will he get used to the view of an ecstatic Enjolras, so willing, so eager, so enthusiastic; he is raging, wild, his every movement as overwhelming to Grantaire as his outbursts of speeches to inspire the masses. Grantaire begins to move, carefully, gently. 

Where Enjolras is usually quiet, guarding the terrible conflagration within his heart in the world outside, that guard only coming down when his emotions concerning the state of the world would otherwise crush him, he is an explosion in bed, writhing and screaming and even sobbing towards the end. Grantaire doesn't stop kissing him and Enjolras doesn't stop kissing him back, it's wet, their hands are everywhere, nowhere, and Grantaire feels _safe_ sheathed in Enjolras like this, fuck, he's kind of sick but this is so hot he might just burn into flames himself. He loses himself in the image beneath him, engulfing him, the passion seeping out of Enjolras' blood and into Grantaire's heart, and he feels so, so alive, and wonders if this is how Enjolras feels all the time. He loves him, he thinks, loves him so very much, and grunts loudly.

No time passes. Many months, years, eternities pass.

And then, Enjolras gasps. Enjolras' eyes never close, he always watches Grantaire intently. He gasps and whimpers and Grantaire understands. He wraps one calloused hand around his lover's length, stroking once, twice, thrice until he feels warm sticky liquid on his fingers, Enjolras' body clenching around him, sees his eyes fluttering open and close, open and close, and hears him say his name, breathless but not broken. (Never broken.) 

Grantaire follows him. It's really not difficult to be swept away by an orgasmic Enjolras. Everything whites out. 

They lie in bed and it should be uncomfortable, with Enjolras' semen between them, between Grantaire's fingers, but it's not. Enjolras is warm and Grantaire is curled around him, their legs entwining, his clean hand on his smooth cheek, stroking tenderly. 

Enjolras mumbles something unintelligble. Grantaire disagrees, thought he doesn't know what Enjolras has said.  
“I _said_ ,” Enjolras says, trying his best to sound at least half-coherent and not as fucked out as he feels, “that if I ever was mad at you... for having to wait... know that I'm definitely not mad anymore.” 

Grantaire grins. “I know. As a reward for my splendid work, may I kiss you, my lady?”  
Enjolras tries to scowl at him, but he doesn't succeed. “What?”  
“I want to try it. Maybe I really will turn into a handsome prince.”  
Enjolras regards him for a moment. Grantaire's grin is wide enough to show all of his yellow, crooked teeth and the gap in the back of his mouth.  
“You'd make a terrible scientist. We've kissed often enough today. There won't be a transformation.”  
“I know,” Grantaire replies, “I don't need a transformation, and I don't think there will be one. I just want to kiss you.” 

And that is a much better argumentation in Enjolras' opinion.  
They kiss.  
There is no transformation at all. Enjolras stays beautiful and Grantaire stays ugly, and if that is how things are, then that is exactly how they should be.

They continue to kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't take Manon's POV as the author's opinion. (It's not. She's saying some stupid things. Especially that bit about men and how it's typical that the best ones play for the other team, sigh. But she's not evil either. She's got a crush, nothing more, nothing less – crushes make all of us act a bit stupid, I believe.)  
> I would like to emphasize that the fact Enjolras lacks the ability to find certain appearances different re: their attractiveness is not a virtue, or a vice, or something. It's just a fact about him, and liking/disliking another person with their appearance factoring in is something very human, and not shallow at all. (But Enjolras is not completely human, now is he.)


End file.
